2012 European Championships: Short Dance

By Alexandra Stevenson

European Ice Dance Short Dance Brings Surprises – Bad
for France, Good for Britain

Wednesday night, Prince Edward, the Queen’s fourth
and youngest child, welcomed the British public to the event’s opening
ceremony (starring Sinead and John Kerr, of course, who retired from
competition after winning their second bronze in this event last year).
The prince said that this event was special, coming as it did just a few
days before the Queen’s Jubilee and the up-coming Olympic Summer Games
in London. Hosting the event proved to be a great decision for the British
Association, with the national dance champions, Penny Coomes and Nick
Buckland, making a huge advance. They lie fourth. Last year they finished
fourteenth!

Although only Europeans countries are eligible to
send entries, American Linda Leaver was the Technical Controller for the
Ice Dance event.

A different surprise was in store for the French
defending champions, Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat. Their main
rivals, Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev, last year’s silver
medalists, were the first of the top ten ranked couples to perform, and
they ended up in first place with a tiny (0.17) but psychologically
meaningful lead.

The Russians presented a Samba and Merengue to a
Shakira Medley. Their twizzles and straight line lift were the maximum
Level 4 and both sequences of the Rhumba and the non-touching circular
steps were Level 3. Their score was 65.06 (31.93+33.13).

Bobrova said they were particularly pleased to be in
the lead especially since they had drawn to skate first of the top ten
ranked couples. "The score is just a little lower than our season’s
best and it was MUCH higher than at the Grand Prix Final and in the
Rostlecom Cup (the Russian Grand Prix)."

Soloviev, 22, said, "Being in first place is a
big success for us. We are very happy with the way we performed today.
Tomorrow, we'll rest a little and then we'll fight again (in the Free
Dance)." His partner, 21, said, "It is our first time here but
we've heard from our junior skaters that it is a nice place. (Sheffield
has hosted three Junior GP events) I like the city."

When asked, "How does it feel to be in a
country with such a long tradition in ice dance?", Bobrova pointed
out that Russia had succeeded Britain at the top in ice dance and had
produced many Olympic champions.

It would later be revealed that the Russians had the
top element score, although the couples who would finish third, fourth and
fifth, all received scores not far behind - between 31.85 and 31.14.

Pechalat and Bourzat skated next-but-one, using
three very entertaining sambas, Mas Que Nada by Ben Jorge; Batacuda
by Abacaxi; and Real in Rio by Sergei Mendez. Their component
scores were the highest (34.53) in the Short, but their levels were low.
They received Level 4 for opening curve lift and for their closing
twizzles, but were given Level 3 for their second sequence of the Rhumba
and, quite shockingly for a couple of their experience, only Level 2 for
the other Rhumba sequence and their non-touching steps. Their technical
score was only fifth best, 30.36.

About their Level 2s, Bourzat said, "I don't
really know why we got them. The footwork felt good tonight. Maybe it was
a jump in the bracket, maybe the edges weren't clean and deep
enough." His partner was asked if the pressure of being the couple
everyone was aiming to bet got them, but she said, "No, we don't feel
pressure. Sometimes it is better to be the challenger than the leader and
maybe it is good for us to be in second place, very close to the first
place. We won't let our title go. We need to skate and fight (in the Free
Dance)."

Ekaterina Riazanova, 20, who came back from a
concussion and broken nose in a mid-December practice accident, and Ilia
Tkachenko, 25, who were sixth in this event last year, lie third place.
They presented a Rhumba called Bonga and some Salsa named Cuba. He
said, "This is very surprising for us and we are very happy with
third place. We have worked very hard after our Grand Prix events. After
Nationals we worked hard on the Rhumba and the footwork, and maybe
therefore that’s why our Rhumba here got a level four and three now. We
didn't do anything special and we didn't make any major changes in the
routine."

Asked whether they felt any pressure appearing in
Great Britain where many in the audience were ice dance fans and some of
them had actually done the rhumba compulsory, they said they didn’t even
think of that. He said, "We don't feel any pressure because of that.
Maybe it would have been different if Sinead and John Kerr would have
competed this year. "

The current British champions, Penny Coomes and Nick
Buckland, both 22 and from Nottingham, took advantage of the home crowd’s
welcome and skated up a storm! In ice dance such big advances are not
common. Coomes said, "To come up ten places – that’s
unbelievable, even though we’ve worked really hard." Buckland
added, "I think it was one of the best performances we have ever
done. Doing an international in Britain is incredible. There was such an
atmosphere in the arena. But we can’t get too excited. We still have the
Free Dance to go on Friday night."

For Coomes and Buckland, their advance has been
particularly rewarding. A few years ago, she crashed to the ice when a
lift when wrong and hit her head. She was in a coma for a while and didn’t
expect to return to the sport. She said, she was "shocked" and
"delighted" at this placing. The two 22 year olds train in the
United States with twice Olympic champion Evgeni Platov.

They received all Level 4s except for a 2 for their
non-touching steps. Platov said, "The rhumba is hard because there
are so few steps that you can really gather speed on, and you need speed
today. And the chocktaw is difficult."

The Britons, actually, were very lucky. They are
sitting on top of a virtual four-way tie. They were 1.56 behind Riazanova
& Tkachenko but just a sliver, 0.12, in front of Isabella Tobias and
Deividas Stagniunas, Lithuania. Tobias was beaming. "I thought we did
a really good job. I think it was definitely our best performance to
date."

In turn, the Lithuanians were only 0.04 ahead of
Italy’s Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte, who are only 0.13 ahead of the
Russians, Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov. Katsalapov complained that
the arena was "a little hot out there", a far cry from last year’s
extreme cold in Bern!

France’s Pernelle Carron and Lloyd Jones, who are
now taught by Natalia Linichuk lie eighth, 2.09 points further down, with
Germany’s Nelli Zhiganshina and Alexander Gazsi ninth, breathing down
their necks, just 0.61 lower. Jones said, "The program went OK but
there’ still a lot to do on the technical side. Everything could be a
bit sharper. We were very pleased with the crowd’s reaction. We changed
coaches and moved to the US this summer and that left us behind
schedule."

Gazsi claimed, "We had fun. Now, we just have
to check why we got such low technical marks." His partner added,
"We thought we did skate rather well and were very satisfied with our
performance. I think we have never had such low levels."

It’s shaping up for a fine Battle Royale in the
Free.

QUALIFYING ROUND (and top qualifiers result in the
Short)

Nineteen couples competed in the Preliminary Round
which was won by first-timers, who subsequently took 11th place
in the Short, Julia Zlobina and Alexei Sitnikov, who
represent Azebaijan. They are 22 and 25 and were so happy to have finally
made it to this event. They won by a significant 7.21 marks over the
second placed Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri of Italy,
who were just 1.2 ahead of the third placed Siobhan Heekin-Canedy
and Dmitri Dun, who represent Ukraine but train with Galit Chait
Moracci in Hackensack, NJ. Heekin-Canedy and Dun finished 16th
in the Short.

In the Short Dance the top two qualifiers
swapped places, with Guignard and Fabbri earning 10th place,
2.79 points ahead of the Azebaijan couple, who were 11th. In
turn they were just a sliver ahead of Spain’s Sara Hurtado and Adria
Diaz, who were 12th in the Short Dance after being fifth in
the Preliminary

The second British couple, Louise Walden and Owen
Edwards, who were competing in their first Europeans, were overjoyed
to be skating before a home audience. They were the fourth placed
qualifiers, and then 14th in the Short.